The
recently announced
Samsung Omnia II GT-I8000 is Samsung's Windows Mobile successor to the
original Samsung Omnia
smartphone, one of the best selling Windows Mobile touchscreen phones ever. With
the Omnia II, Samsung overhauled the original Omnia by adding the latest
technology. While the initial release will run on Windows Mobile 6.1
Professional, Samsung will offer a free Windows Mobile 6.5 upgrade later.
Running on an Samsung ARM 1176 based S3C6410 mobile application processor at 800 MHz (or 667 MHz, yet not 100 % confirmed), the Samsung Omnia II features quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE as well as triband
UMTS/HSPA at 900/1900/2100 MHz with HSDPA up to 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA up to 5.76
Mbps. Furthermore the smartphone features Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, WiFi b/g, aGPS and
an FM radio with RDS.

A real upgrade to the original Omnia is the 3.7" WVGA (480x800) AMOLED
touchscreen which features - as Samsung calls it - "Advanced R-type" tactile
feedback. However, the increased display size has its price. The device measures
118 x 60 x 11.9 mm, which is way bigger than the first Samsung and even bigger
than Samsung's Galaxy
smartphone.

Like the original Omnia, the Omnia II features a 5 megapixel CMOS autofocus
camera but now with dual power LED and a front facing camera for video
telephony. The main camera features video recordings at 30 fps up to 720x480
pixel, for photos it features face detection, smile shot as well as support for
blogging and geo tagging.

The Omnia II comes with an internal memory of 2, 8, or 16 GB (depends on the
version) which can be expanded by microSD memory cards. Like all the recent
Samsung smartphones, the Omnia II also features a micro USB port for sync and
charge as well as a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack.

The Samsung Omnia II is expected to be released anytime end of August/early
September.